Unbalanced squad

In the end a manager gets players who he thinks will suit the system he plays.

We bought & loaned central midfielders, (though we also bought wide players in the summer), because our manager, who deals with the playing staff, thought it'd be a requirement at the time.

The current manager now wants to play a different way and will therefore need to balance the squad his way.

That's the way it is, and that's the way it will stay.

Getting rather touchy CLEGG. I don't speculate on what might be said in mythical conversations between Dougie and Gartside. I gave facts regarding Gartside allowing a manager to sign too many central midfielders, about him placing the club in further uneccessary debt. That's not speculation that's fact bore out by the financial accounts.

We can all speculate but I don't speculate on what Gartside said to Dougie and trying to put it as part of an argument. That really is pathetic if you can't back your argument up with some facts.

You claim to have run a business! God help us.

That really does make me laugh. When working for a PLC, I was responsible for well over a hundred employees and never had a problem that I couldn't solve. The last fourteens years I spent in England I did run my own business and was very successful. So successful I retired eleven years ago at the age of 55. Some how I doubt if you will be able to do that but you can always let me know if you manage it.

Trottter, No manager in his right mind signs 8 Central midfielders when there are more pressing needs, which we clearly had and still have. It's just a pity that between them, Dougie and Gartside have made such a mess of it between them.

Clegg lets just get one thing straight here, whether you like it or not Gartside does have a hell of a say over what players we sign. This is not football manager!

Our manager, whoever it is at the time, goes to him with a list of targets and it is then down to Gartside to look at each deal individually and decide if we can go ahead with it based on transfer fees and wage demands. It is also Gartside as chairman who decides whether there will even be funds available in the first place. That is the same at every football club.

The massive amounts we have misspent as a club over the last 7 years can all, in my opinion, be attributed to the fact that Gartside knows deep down that he mucked up massively when he refused to back Allardyce in the market the January before he left us. Sam had targets in mind that he felt would give us a real chance of making the top 4 and the research and initial sounding out of availability that had been done suggested we'd only need to spend about £4million (plus wages obviously) to secure those targets.

Gartside said no, Sam left and since then Gartside as backed multiple managers with far more funds than he ever gave Sam (with the exception of the Anelka deal). The majority on players with no sell on value (Cahill being the only post Allardyce signing I can think of that we sold on for more than we paid in transfer fee in the first place).

As the one in charge of the purse strings and who makes the final call on major decisions, Gartside is at fault for our current predicament. He may not be in hands on control of all aspects of the day to day running of the club, but it still happened on his watch.

To make a comparison in the world away from football, just look at Tesco. Their have revealed that their accounts have been wrong for as much as 3 years, their profits are down 47%, sales are down and they are losing an increasing amount of market share. Their chariman is standing down because it happened on his watch and he feels new leadership is required to sort the problems.

Gartside could learn a thing or two from that.

Wf, swie, lets get to the crooks of this. The argument being presented is that gartaide shudnt have signed so many central midfielders,. Simply put, he didnt, gartside sanctioned the spending of x amount of money, the players position not being relevant. Dougie felt, that the current midfielders we have werent good enough, which we all know is true. Gartside backed him to replace those players. He gave backin to a manager.

That manager failed an ld has been sacked for failing. Yes critiscise gartside for appointing the wrong manager, but if it gartside who is signing the players, what is the point in the manager from a signing players point of view???

Comparing this to tesco is ludicrous at best.

No the argument being presented is that Gartside is just as responsible for the lack of balance in the squad as Dougie because he signed the cheques and because he has proven in the past that he can and will refuse funds if he doesn't feel it is necessary to spend that money.

How is it ludicrous? The comparison I was making there was based on Gartside's overall performance as Chairman, not specifically related to the discussion of transfers, which make up only one aspect of his responsibilities. The chairman of Tesco oversaw a period in which the company made some bad investments and spent more than they should have on expanding far quicker that they should have. Gartside authorised investment in sub-par players and allowed successive managers to spend far more than they should have done. It is a vaild comparison, even allowing for the fact that it is comparing business operating in very different markets.

Regardless of the market or business model you operate within, as Chairman you are judged on the success of the business. If you make investments that go south and cost the business millions, you will be called to account, and quite likely pay with you job.

So lets look at Gartside.

He is charged with appointing staff who can perform in line with set targets and goals. The overwhelming consensus amongst the fanbase is that he has failed in this respect since Allardyce left. I will concede that this is quite subjective and that at various times Megson, Coyle and Dougie enjoyed some short lived success, however the fact that all were sacked is the ultimate test of how good they were. They failed this test and by extention so does Gartside. (I've not mentioned Lee because the less said about that appointment and the "We've got the better Sam" comment the better)

He is also charged with the financial well being of the club. The account sheets speak for themselves and I am not willing to get in to this argument again, debt is debt however you dress it up, end of discussion.

In any other business environment those two facts alone would be enough to see him facing the very real prospect of being offered the choice of standing down or being removed.

However add in the court case he was recently involved in and the panorama investigation which heavily implicated him as being naive at best and down right bent at worst. Well in the normal business world that would be viewed as bring the company in to disrepute and combined with the above performance would likely see him shown the door.

He appears at first glance to have made a good appointment in Lennon and I give him credit for that.

However I also believe that fresh leadership is required from top to bottom for the club to move forward.

That is based not only on Gartside's failures but also on my belief that periodic change at the top level of any business is good practice as the introduction of new faces with new ideas and perspective is the only way for a business to keep moving forward rather than stagnating. That is not to say that Gartside should leave the business all together, he is clearly an experienced operator and for all his faults we would be silly to simply toss that experience to the curb. However I do feel he should be replaced in the top job.

WF, I think if you were to read all my post, you find that my thoughts pretty much mirror yours.

The problem with CLEGG, is that he has a closed mind concerning Gartside. I don't think he will ever be able to admit that Gartside has crippled our club.

Not true swie, i just dont blame it on the debt figure and the players signed by a manager

It was signing trotter in January and garvan in September that puzzled me. Both times we had priorities in other positions (jan striker and left back), (sept wide attacking and striker). Neither player are better than what we already had especially garvan who is infinitely worse than anyone else we have.

Who or what else do you blame it on then?

Benny, your right. Nobody could understand those signings.

Tbh I blame freedman. He was given a budget to spend and above that he had to do the one in one out thing he did with baptiste and mcnaughton.